


Count backwards to my sun sign

by bluebells



Series: Strangers in Gravity [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Corporate, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-28
Updated: 2011-12-28
Packaged: 2017-10-28 08:24:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/305854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebells/pseuds/bluebells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life is bleak. Adam learns the reason why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Count backwards to my sun sign

**Author's Note:**

> This is for grlkat, who I may have tricked into thinking I was writing proper wing!kink (sorry), and all the Michael/Adam readers who went along with this adhoc mini-series even when I had no idea what it was about.
> 
> The title is taken from Abbe May's song 'Universes'.

The clock reads 5:45AM on the bedside table when Adam pushes himself up to sit, slow and careful not to disturb Michael still dozing behind him.

They used to share this bed.

He winces at the burn in his thighs when he draws his legs over the side and his feet sink to the cold wooden panels. Tiredly rubbing his bare stomach, he resists the temptation to assess the damage. The bruises on his hips feel bone-deep. When he tries to stretch the kinks in his neck, he flinches at the reminder of where Michael’s mouth almost broke the skin, breathing in and sucking kisses at the dip of Adam’s nape, Adam curling the hands Michael pinned to the bed above his head, rocking back as Michael moved inside him, burning the hours until they felt like days, Adam’s head was ringing and his body screamed from exhaustion. But Michael was here and Adam couldn’t waste that.

Michael caught Adam every time he swayed, threatening to crumble with a whimper in his throat, letting him still and breathe.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured into Adam’s skin, tenderness that made his stomach flip, that made him turn under Michael and draw him down to start again.

He largely has himself to blame for the ache in his stomach reminding him that he hasn’t eaten in almost a day. He doesn’t trust that he can stand.

The cool sheets bunch in his fist. This used to be their bed.

Adam doesn’t trust a lot of things anymore.

He’s barely brushed the cell phone on the bedside table when another hand settles over his. A shiver goes through him and his stomach tightens under the arm that snakes around his waist to pull him back against a solid, warm chest.

“Look what they’ve done to you.” Michael’s lips brush his ear, and Adam lets his eyes shut as Michael curls around him.

 _They? You mean ‘you’; ‘us’._

A glass of water is pressed into his hand. Adam doesn’t know when Michael had the chance to get out of bed without him noticing, but he takes it without question and gulps it down greedily. His head feels clearer once he catches his breath, licking the last of the water from his lips. He watches Michael reach past him to place the glass on the bedside table. Adam frowns. Even in the dim morning light, he doesn’t see the marks he’d left on Michael; none of the bruises or scrapes on his biceps or chest and that’s – that’s not possible.

It’s as impossible as the feathery cloth that suddenly brushes against his shoulder, arching up and over –

“Whoa!” Adam cries, knocking it away as he tumbles from the bed, twisting around, and his eyes go wide. “What the—what…. _What is that?_ ”

He looks wildly from Michael sitting on the bed’s edge, sheets pooled around his waist, to the vast wings that spring from his back as they twitch and draw tighter against his shoulders; from their pearly white plumage to the sooty tips as they brush the _other_ form still curled away in sleep on the other side of the bed.

“Are those real? You have _wings?_ ”

He loses his footing and the closet abruptly slams up behind him, but the impact of the wood jarring all those cuts and bruises is numbed by the shock of staring between the two Michaels; identical in every feature but one.

 _Two Michaels._

“Oh my God….”

He looks like… he can’t be. They don’t exist.

“Adam—“

“I’m still dreaming,” Adam says, willing himself to believe it, even as the winged Michael stands with a sigh and shakes his head. He, unlike Adam, is actually wearing pants, but Adam has higher concerns than modesty at the moment.

“You’re not asleep.” Michael sounds sorry for saying it. When Adam looks past him to the other Michael, sleeping on and oblivious to the world, the winged Michael shakes his head. “He won’t wake up. I’ve made sure of that.”

Did he hurt him? Adam swallows with difficulty, folding his arms around himself.

“Who are you?” he demands.

“My name is Michael.”

Anger flashes hot and jittery in Adam’s gut, giving him the strength to step away from the support at his back.

“You’re not – I know who Michael is.”

The guy’s mouth quirks in sympathy, not yet a smile; like a shrug.

“It's all right. I know you won’t understand.”

That was the understatement of Adam’s life.

“W-why do you have wings?”

Michael’s face falls. His touch is gentle on Adam’s shoulders, skimming down to cradle his sore wrists. His thumb strokes the back of Adam’s hand and his hold is so delicate when he tilts Adam’s chin up to examine his face, it makes heat rise in his cheeks. Adam ignores the sting behind his eyes because this _thing_ isn’t the man he fell in love with, it doesn’t hold him so carefully because it knows Adam has craved this touch since he messed up that perfect suit months ago, thinking the businessman was silly and sentimental to treat him like something precious.

Michael searches Adam’s face and his mouth twists. A curse is uttered under his breath as he brushes a tender mark on Adam's jaw. Michael's frown deepens, taking Adam's chin to turn his head the other way. Those wings flex at his back in a beat of irritation.

“This world beyond ours was your second chance for that better life. In fact, we have tried more than one.” Michael shakes his head and Adam shivers, leaning into the palm that cups his jaw. "I tried so many for you, Adam."

Michael smells like the clean, warm cotton Adam's mother used to pull from the dryer when Adam was a kid, and he wraps his arms around Michael without thinking, sinking against his chest, when the other man steps close enough to brush lips to Adam’s forehead. The gesture twists Adam’s gut, reminding him how _his_ Michael used to be, but something had been missing in Michael's light and curious touch, until Adam dug his claws in and pulled him closer; until Michael’s eyes grew dark and he didn’t have to pretend at playing rough anymore.

Adam watches the sun bounce off the gossamer film of his wings in startling blues and gold. He can’t help himself. He gasps when his hand sinks through feathers without the slightest ruffle, so impossibly fine to the touch that it feels like threading his fingers through sand and silk.

He’s so caught up in the strange wonder of this thing in front of him that he almost misses the twitch in Michael’s shoulders when he follows the thick plumes to the muscled arch. The texture changes as his fingers brush heat, Michael winces with a soft, pained sound, and Adam looks up into his face.

“You’re an angel.”

“Why don’t you ever say ‘no’, Adam?” Michael whispers, sounding breathless.

The plea in his eyes makes Adam swallow past the sudden dryness in his throat. Without thinking, his grip curls in that wing as his free hand settles on Michael’s hip (he feels just as warm and smooth and strong as Adam's Michael), and the angel’s eyes have gone dark the next time Adam meets his gaze.

“No matter where I look, you’ve let him find you – and you _always_ stay.”

The feathers flow long and thick, and Adam reaches over Michael’s shoulders to sink his hands up almost to their elbows, continuing his study of those strange appendages. He almost misses the point where feathers meet skin because both are just as soft and, this deep into Michael’s wings, beneath the layers and layers of plumage, all the trapped heat confuses Adam’s touch as he explores the joint of the arch, barely within his reach.

“You want me to leave him?” Adam’s fingers idle on the bone’s arch when Michael sucks in an unsteady breath. His wings beat involuntarily, and Adam feels the shiver through those long, powerful muscles.

“Don’t stay here, Adam.” Michael’s words brush Adam’s bicep when he turns his head, pressing his mouth to the mark his counterpart bruised there. “Don’t say ‘yes’ again.”

Adam stills his exploration to look into the angel’s face. Close enough to share the same air, he finally notices the flecks of gold and pearl in his blue irises, that this Michael is missing the scar at his temple from a fishing accident eight years ago, that his own arms had virtually wrapped around Michael’s neck in his upward stretch to the height of those wings. His hands skim down the limb, resting their hold at the join of the right wing to Michael’s back. Michael’s body sighs and his gaze is on Adam’s mouth when he speaks.

“I don’t have anywhere else to go.” Adam shrugs and tries to swallow the heavy lump in his throat. “I love him,” he confesses, already shaking his head; he can’t help it. He can’t explain. The flush of shame ducks his head before he can think too hard about when that became a fact he wasn’t proud of.

“Adam,” Michael says, and Adam closes his eyes when Michael’s forehead leans against his.

He wraps arms around the angel’s neck and, for the first time, notices the oil on his palms when his fingers slick through Michael’s short hair.

“ _I_ love you,” Michael says, _me, not him_ sliding between his words, and it makes Adam’s hands curl tighter in his hair. He feels himself wince from the vicious burn behind his eyes and he bites his tongue at the first hint of the scowl that tugs at his mouth.

It isn’t a sob, not yet, but if he lets that first sound out, there’ll be no coming back. Michael takes away the problem. He presses his mouth to Adam’s, muffling any noise with his own quiet groan when Adam pushes a hand between Michael’s wings.

The windows tremble in their frames and Adam holds onto the angel wrapped around him as the closet rattles at his back. Michael's mouth is soft and wet, but his hunger isn't hurried and, for the first time in a long time, Adam doesn't feel panicked to tip things harder, rougher and faster. Michael kisses Adam as though it's worth everything to take his time and Adam is stunned by the slow, gentle seduction of Michael's tongue sliding between his lips, of the fringe of wings brushing down his bare skin.

Adam doesn’t see the chest of drawers skitter from its lean against the wall, the paintings swinging from their hooks while the entire bedroom shakes under foot. The bulbs in the bedside lamps die in a feeble burst of sparks. Adam finally opens his eyes when the overhead lights shatter in a spectacular shower of glass. His heart leaps to his throat, but a wing is thrown up in an instant to shield them from the debris.

“Michael!”

The angel drops his wing, throwing off the last of the shards, and it takes him a moment to realise that he isn’t the one Adam is calling for.

Adam side-steps the broken glass in his dash across the room and he crouches at Michael’s side of the bed, brushing slivers from his hair and checking him for cuts. He finds only the marks and bruises he’d expected on the Michael across the room before Adam realised he was an angel.

Huffing in relief, he leans over Michael with an arm wrapped around his torso, listens to his breathing, checks his pulse. Michael stirs with a soft sound under his hands, but he doesn’t wake.

"Adam...."

“Undo whatever you did.” Adam strokes Michael’s pale arm. He fights the urge to look over his shoulder and meet the angel’s gentle plea. He’s too scared he’ll succumb to that tall, quiet promise of sanctuary. It isn't where he belongs.

A sigh tickles the hairs on his neck and he sees the dark tips of wings flap, then withdraw from his periphery.

“He’ll wake up soon,” Michael says.

Fingers turn Adam’s chin and a kiss lingers on his cheek, fond and sad.

“Don’t stay, Adam,” the angel entreats. He hesitates, searching Adam’s face for that last minute change of heart, but Adam doesn’t back down. He looks into those strange, beautiful eyes of sun, sky and stars and wonders why him; why Adam? Why here? Why now?

Michael eventually nods, expression stained with disappointment. His wings rise, their colour fading until their only trace is the monstrous shadow thrown across the wall, and then the angel is gone.

Adam looks back to the bed and realises the broken lights and disoriented furniture have been restored to their places.

He moves forward and brushes Michael’s hair back to kiss his forehead. Michael murmurs in his sleep, turning on his back, but doesn’t rouse.

Adam looks down into his hand and finds his cell phone clutched tight between his fingers.

The hallway door shuts without a sound behind him.

His hands are shaking as he scrolls through his phonebook. The call rings four times before picking up.

“Hello?”

Adam leans against the wall, weak with relief.

“I’m sorry for calling you so early.”

“ _Adam?_ Is everything okay? Are you all right?”

He glances at the bedroom door behind him and pushes a hand through his hair.

“Lucifer. I need a favour.”


End file.
